“Presentations are fun,” said no one ever! But let’s change that. Because after all, when you own a business you cannot escape making presentations can you? You need them in so many places.
What if we told you that presentations don’t have to be boring? Designed right, they can be your golden ticket to winning the hearts of your investors and target audience. Without further ado let’s get straight to the tricks to enhance graphic design for presentations.
We are not talking about the outline of the content in your presentation. We are talking about a plan for the design. A quick summary of what kind of colors, fonts, and aesthetics to use in your slides. Since visuals add depth to your idea, you can also have a collection of relevant images that support the information presented.
For every slide go back to this outline and ensure that you use the same colors, fonts, and visual styles throughout. That’s one way to create an effortlessly flowing presentation that tells a beautiful story rather than overwhelm the audience with an idea that is hard to connect with. And this smooth-flowing layout is one of the first requirements of graphic design for presentations.
Do you think you will pay attention to a presentation with slides that look like the above image?
Let’s face it, none of us like to sit in a presentation that has slides filled with text. You have blogs and emails for when you want to present more detailed information. Presentations are there for presenting your idea, in a crisp and engaging manner. At the same time, you cannot miss out on the key details. So what can you do about this?
One of the easiest ways to enhance the graphic design for presentations is to choose the right color schemes for them Colors make or break the aesthetics of your presentation. When you choose the color palette for your presentation, here are a couple of things to avoid.
Here’s what you should do instead:
Creating a strong color palette for your presentation helps boost its aesthetic value instantly.
Having spoken about colors in graphic design for presentations we would also like to remind you about contrasts. Both in terms of colors and size of elements.
Slides like the one in the above image will cause a lot of strain on the reader’s eyes. You do not want your audience to get tired or give up on your presentation with just one slide, do you? That’s what bad contrasts can do.
When you talk to someone in a flat tone with no ups and downs it might be difficult for the listener to grab your mood. And even more difficult to keep up their attention. The same happens when there is no contrast in your presentation design. Contrast helps in defining an emotional structure for the slides. You emphasize what matters, make the text legible, and ultimately lay the foundation for visual hierarchy.
Just because a few sentences are in a sequence people do not read them in order. In fact, they do not read them all. Hard to believe? Look at the below example.
The very first sentence is perhaps the last one you read on the image. That’s what most people do. And this is because the design defines the hierarchy by contrasting font sizes. You automatically feel drawn to the section with the biggest font size and you read the smallest text at last.
Use this idea in your presentations. If you want to keep people attentive throughout, then add a bold text section to each slide. This loud text will pull even the distracted audience back to your slide.
If there is any information you want your users to retain or carry with them to the next slide, create your hierarchy in such a way that they read this section last. But remember, small-sized fonts might work in some social media designs and static ads where there is just one image for the audience to process. But in the case of presentation, do not make the text size too small.
One other way to add hierarchy without drastically varying the font sizes will be to directly use arrows to indicate the flow. Or color variations. For example, text in bold black might draw attention first and subtle grey text might be read last.
We call it a “presentation” so the core idea is for one person to present an idea and the audience to grasp the message. But the truth is, for your presentation to be truly successful, you need to aim for engagement. Your presentation should not just present the core idea but also evoke the intended response from the audience. For such engagement, visuals can be of great help. That’s why images are critical in graphic design for presentations.
Moreover, using images can drastically alter the look and feel of your presentation. Of course, you need relevant ones that do not look forcefully introduced into the context. Remember we spoke about keeping the text short? That’s where visuals can take over. “A picture is worth a thousand words”, after all.
In conclusion, start by clearly defining an outline for your presentation. Define the flow that best presents your idea. And once you have this, break each idea into a slide and create value with strong visuals. Finally, ensure that your presentation looks and sounds consistent throughout. That’s how you ace the art of graphic design for presentation and earn your audience’s seal of approval.
